Modelling trousers for Genesis...

I am following a tutorial on how to model trousers for a figure, but I am wondering when this is completed - will they move with the character or do I have to do a lot of underpinning?

I mean - when I get the character to kneel - will his knee suddenly protrude from the trousers or will they mould themselves to the body. How will the knee of the trousers know to pin themselves to the knee of the model in question?

I may be a bit premature with this question, but i'd like to know what other complexities are around the corner...

Comments

Once your trousers are finished, you will need to take them into DAZ Studio to rig them (add bones), and then they become what's known as 'conforming clothing', and they move with the figure. There ares still times when some poke through occurs, in extreme poses for example, but by hiding the parts of the figure that are poking though, or using Poke Away in DS4, this can be fixed. There are other ways as well, but ask again nearer the time, or when it actually happens.

Making clothing for the Generation 4 figures (V4, M4 etc) was a lot more difficult. The mesh had to be cut up in Hexagon to match the bone areas of say V4, and then imported to DS using the FST (Figure Setup Tools). Since Genesis, things are a lot easier, and with Genesis, it is almost a case of 'one size fits all'. When you apply the Genesis rigging to your trousers, all of the morphs that Genesis can use are put into the clothing when these morphs are dialed up.

There are tuts on how to do the rigging part, which is pretty painless nowadays.

The trousers on my model appear to be a bit slack at the moment...
If I look down from the top I can see right inside the small space between the fabric and the skin...
If I try to model it any tighter the skin protrudes from the fabric.

Thank you for that - can anyone help me with another question about Hexagon.

I am trying to apply colour to the object as per the tutorial but NO MATERIAL pane is loading on the left when the object is selected.
The materials bar is showing on the left but when the arrow is turned downwards it will not expand.

I will have a look to see if anything strange happens when I do the same thing in the meantime.
Are you saying that you created the material colours in hexagon, and that when you sent the figures and the jeans over the bridge to DS4 that the colours changed?

How did you create the materials, did you UV map the model, or did you use Shading Domains only, and apply a mmaterial that way?
Did you send the full sized Genesis figure, as it loads in DS to hexagon? When you say it does not fir other models, are they also full-sized Genesis figures?

Did you rig the clothing model in DS4, because if you didn't, it wont fit anyway?

I tried this myself, and there is definitely something wrong with the materials when Hex sends the figures back to DS. The Specular strength and the Glossiness are wrong, but that only seems to happen with the Elite textures. When modelling clothing for Genesis, it is much simpler to model to the full sized figure, and then when it is rigged, being Genesis, one size will more or less fit all.

You don;t need to send the figure back to DS from Hex, it is already there. All you should be doing is using the Gen figure as a mannikin to make your clothing, then send the clothing back. It would be a lot easier to send the figure over, save the figure as a Hex file, and then do all your work on it, saving frequently. When finished, import the OBJ for the clothing into DS4 and rig it there.

Have a look at the trousers in the Surfaces tab, and alter the colout there. If you are only using a solid colour, DS can do it much better than Hex anyway. I wouldn't send a figure back to DS from hex, and I wouldn't have a skin on it anyway, takes up far too much memory, and it is not needed at all.

Someone else may be able to help more. Your jeans are looking good so far. well done.

Thank you for the compliment - though I did notice something strange when passing the trousers via saving as OBJ.
The trousers when imported did save the colour OK but it was about 1000 times larger than the model...
I tried parenting it to the genesis model and even the original model but the trousers were far to big and were a million miles away from the model figure.
How on earth can you get the trousers to fit the model again when the model is in exactly the same scale as the one passed to Hex in the first place.
Problems Problems Problems! Oh well perseverance is the answer!

You have to be very careful when saving an OBJ to make sure that it is the correct scale. Using Hex, export at a scale of 1.0, and import to DAZ Studio at 1000%. That looks about right to me. See if that works fro you.

I agree with JimmyC regarding doing the textures in Studio - wait till you are finished rigging to do that, so you can better see what is happening.

I think your problem stems from mixing exporting as .obj and using the bridge - your proportions will be all over the place. Also making clothing for a morphed Genesis needs extra steps to get it to fit - not something you want to try as a beginner. However, if you really want to, I can give you the steps. If you model to the basic Genesis and rig it using the transfer utility, the clothing will take on the morphs and will change to fit whatever Genesis figure you morph it to - that is the magic of Genesis.

Bear in mind that the bridge is only to be used to make morphs.

The standard process for making clothes is :-

1. Use the basic Genesis, with smoothing set to basic. Export as .obj, using the default Daz Studio scale.
2. import into Hex using a scale of 1. Weld all the parts into one and delete all materials - I keep a modified copy on hand for this.
3. Lock Genesis so that you won't be able to inadvertently select verts. Be sure not to move Genesis from the default loaded position while modelling.
4. Model your clothing.
5. Delete Genesis and export the clothing as .obj at a scale of 1.
6. Load the basic Genesis in Studio and import the clothing .obj at the Daz studio scale.
7. With the clothing .obj selected, r-click on the scene tab, select assets, transfer utility. In the dialogue, under source, select genesis and under target select your clothing. Choose the projection template. That's about it. Do the shape change under shaping and the pants will follow suit.

There are a some different options for making clothes to fit to a non-basic Genesis shape - rather progress to that than start straight away.

You don't need to scrap what you have already done - proceed as per steps 1 to 3 above, then import your saved .obj, scale to fit the full figure, make any changes you need to, then go on from step 5.

One of the things that makes making clothing for Genesis easier is the fact that it is a relatively trivial procedure to get it to fit almost any morph, if you model it for the base. The process Roygee outlned is much more streamlined than what you needed to do for previous generations of models.

1. Use the basic Genesis, with smoothing set to basic. Export as .obj, using the default Daz Studio scale.
2. import into Hex using a scale of 1. Weld all the parts into one and delete all materials - I keep a modified copy on hand for this.

I tried the above - the resultant import was enormous... see attached.
This can't be right. It's "honey I blew up the kid!"
I've cut out an area just so as not to breach forum rules - there was nothing there anyways...

Hmmm OK so the scaling worked better with this....... Got a decent result with the scaling
How can I recover what I've done so far with the existing trousers then?
Given that the trousers do not fit properly to the general genesis - calves and butt pokes through the cloth waist does not fit etc... Do I have to start all over again and if so then how would the new pair of rags fit the character if I change it to a younger version later?

Yes, you will have to do a tiny bit of remodelling to get it to fit the default Genesis figure and yes, it will then fit whatever shape you morph Genesis to. If you had stayed with the original teenage-sized figure, once you rigged it, it would not have fit correctly, because that figure would have been scaled down and when doing the rigging fit, it would have scaled the pants down proportionately.

This is what I meant about extra options you would have needed to do to get it to fit.

It actually does not matter what scale you export and import at, as long as you are consistent at importing and exporting at the same scale. It is just easier to remember if you do this at the default scale of 1, especially if your project is done over a period of time and when it time to export you don't remember what scale you imported at.

I've changed some of the settings to that of a teenager but considered that if I did not then the trousers would not fit when I scaled the original DS genesis to suit afterwards.

I'll try it with the default gen figure...

Terry

As Roygee says, when you make clothing for Genesis, do it for the unmorphed, Base Genesis figure. That way, when you rig it, it should fit any Genesis character from a child to the Hulk. That is the whole point of Genesis, one size fits all (or almost).

Making stuff for V4 or M4 is a lot more problematic, and Genesis is a lot simpler.

OK - I'll make another pair of trousers for the basic Genesis character as outlined - the experience in modelling has not been a waste of time as far as Hexagon goes because I've learned a lot in the process. Hexagon looks like a fantastic tool once you've spent a while to get the basics - though there are a few times when i've validated something and found it increases the polygon count - then found I can not undo the process.
Luckily for me I do regular saves..
Thanks for all the feedback - i'll return here when i've modelled a fresh pair.

INCIDENTALLY - once completed - how do I get these to appear in the content library in DS4.5?

As far as rigging and fitting the clothing, it doesn't matter whether you weld into one or leave as separate - Studio reads it all as one. On the one hand, keeping them separate makes UV mapping simpler - you must UV map before exporting to rig. On the other hand, if you ever need to apply the smoothing modifier to get a better fit, the pieces will tend to separate from the clothing. If it were up to me, I'd weld all together - not just the groups, but physically attach using weld vertices.

If you have a belt, rather make that a separate clothing item - especially if it has a buckle that you won't want to have deform with the bending of the body. You can do this by hiding it when you export the clothing and it won't be part of the .obj.

For making creases, after everything is done and saved as an asset, you can send it over the bridge to Hex in the posed position and model the creases, send it back and save as a morph. The creases will only show when you invoke the morph. Remember to have the resolution in the base mode.

You can also use other software, such as Zbrush to sculpt the creases - a very basic, but good (and free) sculpting application is Sculptris. To use this, export the clothing in the posed position as an .obj, do the sculpting and import it via Morph loader.

I've gone through the UV mapping and painting process, saved the resultant file as OBJ and imported it into DAZ Studio.
The trousers are still white/grey - the colour mapping has not carried across.
Any ideas why?

Studio doesn't automatically read the texture file - you need to go to the surfaces tab, select diffuse and navigate to the folder where you saved the .obj. There you will find a .png file with the same name as the .obj. Load that and you should be OK